a record of the life and times here at the phillips pottery in abilene, texas.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

#300.

I test drove the hoopty today, it did well. We had extreme winds and I had all kinds of problems with the pilots popping out early on. I loosened the bracket and tilted the pilot& thermocouple up so the thermocouple was almost in the burner flame, shortened thermocouple life but problem solved. The remainder of the firing was in a decent time frame. After 20#'s of salt the rings were still a tad on the dry side but I didn't have anymore salt so here's hoping it was enough.

Crash cooling.

I finished teaching my last course for the semester today, I still have to give finals but that's a piece of cake. For the final in my kiln building class they are submitting a kiln design(with burner and btu requirements of course!) with parameters that I gave them, hopefully they learned something. They also have to each submit a name for each of the three kilns that we built. I feel the names should have some sort of significance either personally or to the kiln, serious or funny, doesn't matter. We'll then vote, and if I don't like it I'll remind them my class isn't a democracy and pick my favorite. The salt kiln was built entirely of used/salvaged brick, except for the door. It has an air of "ghetto-ness" to it, so I've submitted "hooptie ride" as my choice. When I was in college we named all of our kilns after Elton John songs. There are some stories there but we'll save that for another day, I've got to go home to build a deck and organize the showroom.

I am one of the many potters who would like to build a small gas (4'x4'x4') kiln but would like additional information on an optimal plan and which burners to use, etc. I apologize if I am the 500th to ask this question, but I just came across your blog on the internet.Joe TroncaleNew Holland, PA